Microwave Technique for Linear Skull Fracture Detection—Simulation and Experimental Study Using Realistic Human Head Models

Microwave (MW) sensing is regarded as a promising technique for various medical monitoring and diagnostic applications due to its numerous advantages and the potential to be developed into a portable device for use outside hospital settings. The detection of skull fractures and the monitoring of their healing process would greatly benefit from a rapidly and frequently usable application that can be employed outside the hospital. This paper presents a simulation- and experiment-based study on skull fracture detection with the MW technique using realistic models for the first time. It also presents assessments on the most promising frequency ranges for skull fracture detection within the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) and ultrawideband (UWB) ranges. Evaluations are carried out with electromagnetic simulations using different head tissue layer models corresponding to different locations in the human head, as well as an anatomically realistic human head simulation model. The measurements are conducted with a real human skull combined with tissue phantoms developed in our laboratory. The comprehensive evaluations show that fractures cause clear differences in antenna and channel parameters (S11 and S21). The difference in S11 is 0.1–20 dB and in S21 is 0.1–30 dB, depending on the fracture width and location. Skull fractures with a less than 1 mm width can be detected with microwaves at different fracture locations. The detectability is frequency dependent. Power flow representations illustrate how fractures impact on the signal propagation at different frequencies. MW-based detection of skull fractures provides the possibility to (1) detect fractures using a safe and low-cost portable device, (2) monitor the healing-process of fractures, and (3) bring essential information for emerging portable MW-based diagnostic applications that can detect, e.g., strokes.